Thursday, October 18, 2012

A friend of mine suggested that I put a padded cover on my camera strap. For comfort, and for fashion :) I never heard of such a thing, but it made sense. The strap did sometimes irritate my neck. Plus, it would add some flare to my camera! I bought about a 1/4 of a yard of fabric. There was a decent amount of excess fabric, but it didn't cost much. I probably could've done an 1/8 of a yard. But better to have extra than not enough! Also, I used leftover batting from Christmas quilts.

Sandwich the batting inbetween the fabric, folded wrong sides together, and with the fold at the top. It should look like a rectangle. Usually the fabric is about 45 inches wide, so I just folded it down and it was about the length of my strap. I would suggest spray basting, but I didn't have any. I had to pin, and it never came out perfectly flat. But it was good enough for me.

< Sew lengthwise on both sides. You will be sewing these sides together later, but this will just keep the batting in place as you work with it.

At the bottom, cut the batting a 1/2 inch from the edge. Then fold the edge in and press, with one side of the fabric covering the batting

Once you fold and press both sides, it will look like this.

Sew on edge down with the batting.

Do a blind stitch to sew it up.

Fold it over your strap for size. Pin and cut excess fabric.

< Sew together and seal with a zigzag stitch. Flip it inside out. Done! Comfortable, fashionable, I love it!

I searched on pinterest for costume ideas for the Cat in the Hat. I found a tutorial for the hat, but nothing for the costume. It looked fairly easy though... so I used my favorite costume as inspiration and set off to make a costume.

Have I ever mentioned that I can be cheap?! Many put it delicately, and say I tend to be frugal. Whatever the word, I wanted to make these as economically as possible. Using things that I already had or could buy for cheap. I saw costumes at ToysRUs for $30 a piece! And they wouldn't even fit the kids. I used lots of things I already had and bought a few pieces of material and a plain black shirt. I think the total cost of this costume was under $10.

Hat﻿

I found a good tutorial on pinterest, which led me here﻿. I changed the color pattern to match the Cat in the Hat book. My son is especially particular on details like that! I couldn't figure out how to attached the hat to the brim. I did something crazy, I'm sure. But it's attached and wearable! On the brim, I cut out a ring that was sandwiched inside the brim. I didn't like how floppy the brim was by itself. I have some mesh plastic canvas (available at the craft store) that I used in a knit hat with a brim. Works great! and it's washable too.

Shirt

I didn't have it in me to make a long sleeve shirt. I had plenty of black fabric, but I thought a $3 shirt from WalMart was worth it! I used white felt (from the hat) for the belly. Cut an oval shape for the belly and pin. I did a single stitch around the edge and done. You can probably do a zigzag stitch around the edge too. This will probably launder better.

Bow Tie

I'm sorry that I don't have pictures for this part! I did it in parts over the course of a couple of days, sick as a dog, and I just spaced on grabbing some pictures. But here's the jist. I used red felt (from the hat) and free handed a basic bow tie shape. I used the book as a guide. I also free handed the piece of the bow tie hanging down, because I wanted to make that separate and attach it later.

I sewed along the outline of my bow tie on 2 pieces of red felt, sandwiching them together. I left one side of the bow tie open so that I could turn the bow tie inside out. Then I did my best attempt of a blind stitch to close it up (felt doesn't iron well). I was being cheap and didn't have red thread, so I used white. I have some parts where the white is showing a little, but it not very noticable. But red thread definitely would have been better!

I did the same thing for the piece of the bow tie hanging down, flipped it inside out. I cut out a small strip of the red felt and wrapped it around the center of the bow tie to look like the knot of the bow tie. Hand sew that onto the back of the bow tie. Then hand sew the dangling piece to the back.

Hand sew the entire bow to the shirt, and done!

Gloves

I think WalMart sells winter knit gloves in the baby section for .99 cents. I can't remember if they had white ones or not... I feel like they did. But Ethan wanted 3-fingered gloves, like the cat. When I looked through the book... sometimes Cat has 3 fingers, sometimes 4, sometimes 5. But Ethan requested 3, so here we go!

I had a white t-shirt that my husband let me use for a pair of pants for a different costume. I was able to cut out enough fabric for a pair of gloves too. I outlined another pair of gloves that I already had, just for size guesstimation.

I pinned 2 pieces of fabric together and cut it out with a thumb, and 2 fingers together on the top. Often in the book, Cat looks like he has a thumb, 3 middle fingers together, and a pinky. But I thought that would be uncomfortable and difficult to put on.

Fold the bottom hem of the gloves twice and sew.

Sew the outline of the glove. Try on for size, and adjust sizing as needed. I needed to sew closer on the fingers. Trim the excess fabric. Get especially close on the inside on the fingers.

Flip inside out, and gloves are done! Not form fitting, but good for show.

Pants

I used a template here for how to make pants out of an old t-shirt. There isn't a real tutorial on it. Basically you cut out the legs, sew the inner seam (where the crotch is). Then sew each leg shut. Sew an elastic band on the waist and hem the bottom. Pants done!

I had to think of a way to have a tail, but still have it comfortable. We plan on going to a couple harvesty events, and I didn't want his tail bothering him while in his car seat. I decided to make it detachable with a button. Sew a button on the back of the pants on the waist band. He doesn't seem bothered by the button. Then you can attach the tail for show.

Now buying a $3 pair of Granimal pants from WalMart would have been much easier! But I wanted plain, black pants. Everything has a design or stripe down the side. This wasn't that hard, and made from an old t-shirt.

Tail

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Sew 2 pieces of fabric together, with a rounded end for the tail. This will make a tube. Flip it inside out and stuff it with poly fil.

I found out the hard way that the fabric I had on hand would leak of fuzzy pieces of poly fil. So I took all the stuffing out, and put a plastic inside the tail, and then re-stuffed the tail. It's a crunchy-sounding tail now. Oh well! And it doesn't have white fuzz seaping out anymore.

Leave the opening of the tail without poly fil. You can do a blind stitch to close it up. I just did a single stitch with the edges folded in to make for a nice seam. His shirts hang over, so you can't really see the stitching anyway. Then sew a button hole to attach the tail to the back of the pants.

I've captured my kids in some comical situations. But Euan... this kid falls asleep in the most unconventional places and positions. It's brought me many laughs, so I thought I'd share them with you!

As a newborn, he had to be held all the time! And often fell asleep from the constand motion. I later discovered the wonderful joy of a wrap! We were a baby wearing couple.

I know I am breaking the rules here, having the bumbo on the table (shriek!). But it was a big table! I think Euan is around 4 months here. I was making dinner.

This is actually a picture of my nephew. He is also guilty of falling asleep EVERYWHERE! ﻿

On a road trip back to Washington, the kids were knocked out! Euan was asleep sitting next to me. Ethan, my niece, and nephew were in the back. I love a quiet van.

I was making dinner again, and here he goes. He's not even wearing pants! Good thing his cloth diaper is fashionable :)

2 boys miss their naps, and this is what happens at 6:30 pm. And both boys where moved to their beds without being disturbed and slept through the night!

Yet another missed nap time led to a tired boy on the couch.

The close up is just so precious!

This is one of my favorites. What was Euan doing? He was in a time out. Crying and screaming his eyes out because he wasn't getting his way. Apparently, his blanket was laying on the floor nearby. I thought he calmed down and stopped crying. Well... not exactly. He had cried himself into a coma!

My local library has kits for kids. The kits are organized by theme and include books, visual aids, videos, activity books, etc. I think it was a farm theme kit that had a book with an activity book about animals and counting. Theme-o-saurus I think the book is called? The library has copies and I've picked some up for free at book sales.

SO! I flip through and make copies of ideas and activites I like. This one was about matching and counting. There's a cut out with animals and their name, another cut out with the numeral, and yet another cut out with the number written out. At this point, Ethan was becoming very interested in letters. I decided to take this activity a step further and have him find letters and spell out all the animal names and numbers.

I had a bucket of letter tiles from my mother-in-law. She has an awesome collection that she's passed on to me!

(Don't mind his hat and PJs!) We first found the matches of animals and numbers, then found the matching letters.

Here's the result! We didn't have enough tiles to do all the animals and numbers 1-10. However, we did 1-5, then started over for 6-10. This activity took a couple of hours. And it was strongly child-led. It took more encouragement towards the end, but I really wanted him to finish. He was so proud of himself! And that was home-made homeschooling. How fun!

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Happy 1st birthday to our local Chick-fil-A. Bring in a birthday card, get a free sandwich. Had the cutest cow image on the Cricut, and was able to use a bubble to make a cute saying. We all signed the back, and it's still hanging in the office at the store :) I guess they liked it too... But maybe they're biased! Ha!﻿

One of my mom groups was doing a kick-off with games and food. Our theme was "Plunge" so I made some beach-theme centerpieces.

It didn't cost me anything either! I already had the pails and shovels from the mom group. Got the sand from my boys' sandbox, used BBQ wooden skewers I had in the drawer, and paper from my scrapbook stash. Used the Cricut to make cute sea creatures. I thought they turned out adorable!

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

I bought this kids lawn chair at a garage sale for $1. I usually see them in the store for about $5.99-$9.99. It's Superman, someone that my kids don't really know. But I thought for a buck, it will be nice to have an extra chair outside when we have friends over. Turns out, I bought some Spider-Man stickers for a birthday banner and I was going to have a ton of stickers left over. Thus, light bulb! The chair was already red, so I decided to take something old, and make something new!

I traced the shape of the cut out on the back of the chair. Then I cut it out, fitting the paper as closely as I could to cover up the image. I put a few Spider-Man stickers on the paper and took the paper outside.

Clear, non-glare/glossy contact paper has many uses! I cut out a shape slightly bigger than my traced shape. I peeled the backing off and put the picture on the sticky paper, Spider-Man side down. Then I trimmed the edges to about a 1/4 inch.

I use this adhesive for scrapbooking. It can be pricey, but I always have a 40% coupon! I sprayed the back of the paper outside. Line it up and press down... Voila! A Spider-Man lawn chair. ﻿

1/3 cup pine nuts (found in the baking section or in produce with salad toppings)

2 cloves garlic

1/2 olive oil

salt and pepper

1. Combine basil, cheese, pine nuts and peeled/crushed garlic in a food processor and process into a rough paste.

2. With the machine running, slowly add olive oil to desired consistancy. It should be a thick paste.

3. Season with salt and pepper.

Can be refrigerated for a week or frozen for up to 3 months (but I've frozen for much longer in the deep freeze). ﻿

Our family LOVES pesto! It can be pretty expensive though. So I made sure to plant lots of basil in the garden this year. I started them in newspaper starters, here. They germinated well and flourished in the garden. Basil loves hot weather, so we were very lucky!

I had 4 plants that resembled bushes!

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I used scissors to clip the leaves off all 4 plants. My colander runneth over!

I prepare the recipe and freeze them in baggies, about 1/2 cup per bag (that's how much our family consumes in one meal, but you can bag as much or as little as you want!). I pull a bag out the day before I want to use it and homemade pesto is what's for dinner!

Monday, September 24, 2012

I have lots of friends that ask how to freeze meals. I have been doing this for about 4 years, when I was getting ready to deliver my first baby. I knew that friends, family and people from my church would bring some meals over, and I could send my husband out to pick up take out. But I thought, I'd better have some food in the freezer that I can just pop in the oven so I won't have to worry about cooking post-labor. Even my husband could do that for me!

When I browsed the freezer section at the store, I couldn't believe how much a frozen lasagna was! Not only is it known that cooking meals at home is good for the budget, but it's also good for you! That's when I decided to make meals and freeze a family dinner portion of it.

At the time, I was cooking for just my husband and me. Most recipes feed 4-8 servings. I typically would half a recipe, so I wouldn't have a huge amount of left overs. When I started freezing meals, I would make the entire recipe, keep half of it to eat that evening, and then freeze the other half. Even with 2 young children, about a half a recipe still feeds us pretty well. Of course, we've changed our eating habits over the years. More veggie sides, less entree.

Most recipes that I freeze are able to be warmed in the oven or on the stove. I make a lot of casseroles, pastas, soups, mashed potatoes, and lasagna. Some recipes found here.

I like to freeze food in Ziploc gallon size freezer bags. I personally choose Ziploc brand because they don't have any plasticizers. I get them at Sams (or Costco) and they're a better price in bulk. If you like to coupon, you may be able to get them cheap! I have a pretty good idea of the amount our family eats for a meal, so I load the bag up with enough food for our family for one meal. Most recipes, I am able to freeze half of it. Larger recipes I can get about 3 or even 4 dinners. One family dinner portion goes into the dish and in the oven (or onto the table) and I portion the rest of the meal into bags. I like to freeze them flat, because they thaw quicker! I pull them out of the freezer the night before, place on a plate and keep in the fridge to thaw. Warm in the oven (or for soups, warm on the stove) and dinner is ready! And you didn't even have to cook!

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I also make/freeze things that I use often but can spoil if not used quickly, such as; ground turkey, turkey sausage, steak, cooked beans, cheese, sauces and homemade chicken stock. Some of these items I buy in bulk and can't possible use in a timely manner. Like 5 pounds of ground turkey! Buying in bulk can be economical, so I try to portion things into sizes that I typically use.

Ground meats, I measure (on a food weight or scale) a half a pound (8 ounces) and put into a sandwich size Ziploc bag. I like these bags because they won't leak, and they're easy to pop the meat in. I flatten it slightly so it lays easily on a plate when I go to thaw it. You can also put into freezer paper (this is too much work for me, though I do use it with steaks and turkey sausage links), or you can wrap it in plastic wrap.

Glad makes cling wrap that doesn't have plasticizers. I use this for wrapping cheese! I buy a 2.5 pound block, cut into usable size chunks, wrap in cling wrap and freeze in a gallon bag marked with the type of cheese it is. I freeze gouda, cheddar and parmesan this way. My Sams club doesn't sell mozzarella in blocks anymore, only shredded. Which I don't like as much, because they have that powder on them... but it works. I measure 2 cups of shredded cheese in a sandwich bag and freeze.

Freezer meals have become a huge part of my meal planning. I make many meals with intent to freeze some of it, and use freezer meals through the month. Freezing meals is easy and convenient!

Disclaimer!

My husband is Serv-Safe certified, and informed me that some of the ways I buy, cook and freeze may not follow the rules of food safety. For example, you shouldn't re-freeze food that's already been thawed. I don't do that with raw meat. And sometimes meat from the store is in the raw meat section, but it was frozen when it came to the store. You may have to check with the store about whether it's arrived fresh or frozen. Or if it was prepare fresh at the store.

Sometimes I will use thawed meat in a recipe, cook it and then freeze the meal. I think I may be breaking the rules here! We've never gotten sick, but I think it's possible that if food hasn't been handled properly in these processes, that food borne illnesses are possible. So cook and prepare with care!﻿

For lasagna, I can get 4 dinners out of one recipe! For now anyway :) A loaf pan is the perfect size for one dinner for us, but use whatever you have! You could even buy disposible loaf pans, freeze them and cook right in the pans and throw them away. I make one pan for us to eat that night (no foil) and line 3 pans with foil. Flatten the foil as much as you can. If there are any bumps, pieces bunched up, or overlapping, it will get frozen and stuck in with the lasagna! So flatten out any bunchy spots. The foil is solely to for easy removal from the pan, not to cook in. I had done that once in the past, and got tiny pieces of foil mixed in with my lasagna when I cut it.

Note: Studies have shown in books that I've read that aluminum can be bad for the brain. I still use it in cooking, but I try to limit my use. Mostly I use it to cover a pan to keep it from drying out in the oven, and I try not to let it touch the food. But for something like this, I'm not heating it in the oven. So I don't fret too much. If you're concerned, do some research and come to your own conclusion... because I am not a scientist :)﻿

Make the layers in the pans, and your lined pans will look like this. Pop in the freezer over night. Pull the frozen lasagnas out and let them sit on the counter for 5 or 10 minutes. This will allow them to loosen from the pan without ripping the foil. Pop the lasagnas out of the pan (they should slide right out). The foil will be slightly frozen to the dish, so gently pull the foil off. If you flattened it when you lined the pan, the foil should peel right off. Every once in a while, a little piece of foil will get stuck in a crack of the pasta or layers, it's pretty easy to chip those out. This batch was perfect! Peeled off without a hitch!﻿

I can fit 2 loaf pan lasagnas in a gallon bag. When I'm ready to cook it, I pull one out and put it into a loaf pan. Perfect fit! You can cook from frozen or thaw in the fridge in the loaf pan. 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes. I don't typically cook it from frozen, so I'm not sure about how much longer to cook it. But I'd add at least 30-45 minutes.

Ethan is 4! And he picked Spider-Man theme about 3 months ago :) I made a double layaer white cake with strawberry filling (his favorite fruit!) and strawberry ice cream. I made the quick icing and added food coloring for icing and piping. I got the figurine from the Dollar Tree!

Thursday, July 12, 2012

This has been a project in the making for months! I saw it in a Costco Connection magazine. I bought alaphabet stencils and traced them onto poster board. I picked photos that would be a good display through the letters (the space needle, the gateway arch, scenic photos from our vacations, etc). I used a craft blade (like an Xacto knife) to cut out the letters and backed each letter with a different photo.